What’s So Cool About DevOps and Why Should I Care?

Although DevOps is growing in popularity among the technical crowd, there are still businesses bumbling along in an out-dated linear mode wondering what all the fuss is about. The term DevOps comes from blending development and operations. In short, DevOps is a cultural practice that emphasizes communication and collaboration between development and operations staff. And it operates throughout all stages of a software design and development lifecycle. Sounds good, right? But just how does that translate into business benefits for you? An effective DevOps initiative….

Fulfills the Need for Speed

Because of  DevOps’ collaborative nature, software development and time-to-market happen at a much faster pace. What used to take months to flow from requirements to release is now reduced to days, or even hourly release cycles. Continuous integration, automated deployments and standardized production practices help companies get more done faster, giving them a powerful competitive advantage.

Helps You Become a Quick Change Artist

With traditional methods like waterfall, the entire process is slow and clunky. Newly developed software only has the features that were chosen at the start of the project. Any potential changes or improvements noted during development get clumped into the next release cycle. In a way, this makes newly released software already out of date. With DevOps, big projects are broken into smaller pieces with continuous delivery, so teams can test quality and compare features at any point in the process. The result? A more stable product with up-to-minute features already in place.

Stops Big-time Bug Outs 

It’s unavoidable, bugs happen. DevOps combines iterative development, modular programming, shared code base and test-driven techniques. So you not only deal with less big bugs, but it’s easier to spot ’em and squash ’em during each release cycle. Cool stat: According to the Puppet Labs “2015 State of  DevOps” report, organizations using a DevOps method experience 60x fewer failures in the first place, and recover 168x faster when an incident does occur.

Improves Team Spirit

In a traditional IT environment, dev is all about creativity and cool features, while ops is all about stability and reliability, and never the twain shall meet. With DevOps, there’s no more punting the ball back and forth, or toe-tapping waits for someone else to get their end finished. DevOps creates a single team that works together. They understand the big picture so they can get rid of repetitive tasks and reduce waste. This culture shift can even extend outside the two departments, reducing office politics and creating a more unified work environment throughout an organization.

Within a DevOps world, no longer do the development and operations groups function as silos, but instead form a cross-functional community that delivers big benefits to an organization. In sum, DevOps is about getting more done, at a faster rate, with greater reliability.

Are you ready to embrace the  DevOps revolution?